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arabellaflynn · 2 years

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I went down a few rabbit holes while researching the Advent Calendar last year, that didn't make it into the queue because they got too long or went too far afield. Here's one of them!

One thing you notice when you watch a bazillion videos about old games consoles is how the design of circuitry has evolved. If someone says 'circuit board' today, you think a light piece of leafy green board, filled with parallel lines of copper at 45° and 90° angles, dotted with lots of tiny inscrutable plastic and metal doodads. But it took a long, long time for them to get that way.

If you look at really old circuit boards -- and I mean really, really old circuit boards, like from the beginning of the transistor era, they look completely different. They're brownish, for one thing. And kind of... wiggly?

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Apologies for the transfer quality. It's not your connection, it just sucks. This piece appears to be some sort of promo-tainment thing from Tektronix themselves, from 1969. The rounded corners and bluish fuzz at the edges is an effect called 'vignetting', and it means this is originally from a 16mm film reel. There's no earthly reason for film to look this terrible. The uncentered picture means someone copied it by pointing a camera at a projection screen instead of bothering to get a proper kinescope setup, and the fact that it only goes up to 240p makes me feel like it was originally transferred over two decades ago for RealPlayer and nobody bothered to fix it for YouTube. VHS is about 240 lines, but if this were a crap transfer from a VHS tape you'd also see scanlines. It's possible there's a better copy at VintageTek, a museum dedicated to the history of Tektronix; they are an all-volunteer institution, and they probably have more important things to funnel funding to than updating their YouTube channel.

Point being, it looks like porridge and I'm sorry, but at least the content is interesting.

The brownish color, which is actually from an evolutionary stage earlier than what's covered here, is because many early boards were milled of bakelite rather than electrodeposited onto a glass or fiberglas backplane. If you want to see some of what that might have been like, you can hop over to Usagi Electric. He uses CAD to mill boards, rather than the photochemical process described by Tektronix, but it's pretty much the same idea. He does a lot of it in pursuit of his mad obsession with building a vacuum tube computer here. (If you're curious, his logo says うさぎ電気, "Usagi Denki". "Usagi" is Japanese for rabbit or bunny -- there is one who appears at the end of some videos -- and the spelling of "denki" here specifically means electrics, as opposed to 電機, which is usually rendered electronics. It still pops up in the names of some engineering or technology firms, but generally only the really old ones.)

The wiggly nature of early boards is neatly explained by watching the drafting process, starting about three minutes into the video. It was originally done by hand. The rest of the half-hour video goes through the whole multi-stage process, but the gist is that when you lay out the board, you draw dark lines where you want the conductive traces to be on the final product. To get a consistent size, tape is used for "holes" and tape lines are uses for the traces. If you've ever used stripe tape in nail art, it was apparently something like that -- vinyl tape with a bit of stretch, so you could curve it around. It was a methodical sort of art form. Ever solved one of those "connect the same-color dots without crossing lines" puzzles? It's basically that. If you can't find a topologically-appropriate solution on a single plane, you can produce boards with traces on both the front and the back, as Tektronix does here, and these days you can actually bury traces in internal layers as well. It's just a pain and makes the cost go up exponentially.

The mention of "holes" is interesting. Early circuit boards were nothing but holes. Everything had legs and was soldered on from the underside. Today these are known as "through-hole mounted" components; the alternatives are "surface-mount" components, which are generally smaller and fiddlier to solder on by hand, but considerably easier to lay down and solder in place by machine. Surface-mount technology has been around since before this Tektronix piece, but remained NASA-grade esoterica until the automated assembly process became cost-effective in the 1990s. Today the conductive holes are referred to as "vias" and the little medal dots surface-mount things are soldered to are "pads".

I'll also note that they show the automatic soldering process for these boards late in the video. It involves skimming the boards across the surface of a pool of molten solder. Solder in the 1960s contained a lot of lead. I would not personally like to be in that room. Today a machine places little surface-mount doojiggers in place along with solder beads, and then melts it all very gently in a very hot oven until it all melds together, not unlike a pan of slightly too-runny cookies. If you do it right, the surface tension of the solder keeps it on the pads and out of the traces. This is particularly useful for placing CPUs, whose myriad tiny pins in a tight grid would be far too difficult to solder by hand, and the origin of "reflow" repairs for electronics that are exhibiting symptoms of flaky solder joints.

The "silkscreening" process here does not use silk, but originally it did -- it was invented in Asia, logically enough. The gist of it is that you take a piece of finely woven mesh, traditionally light silk but in modern times also metal or synthetic fiber, and you plug up all of the little holes in it in the areas where you don't want ink to get through it, usually with some sort of water-repellent substance. In the days of yore, you painted on some kind of sap or wax, but nowadays it's usually a light-sensitive plastic that's scraped across the whole mesh, topped with a stencil that is opaque where you want ink to flow, and exposed to UV light that sets the substance. The unset areas that were in shadow are rinsed clean, leaving the mesh permeable in those places. The ink emulsion is then applied to the printing surface beneath in the reverse process: Ink is spread across the mesh, then squeegeed through with enough force to push it through the holes in the weave and onto the surface beneath. The dots of ink bleed just enough to flow into one another, producing a solid area of pigment. The circuit board designs were originally drafted in black on a white background, then photographed and reduced to 1/4 their original size, and the film used as the stencil for the silkscreen.

Holes are drilled mostly by hand(!) in this clip, which is an error-prone process, as you can see from the Usagi Electrics guy. The worker uses what's called a pantograph drill. A pantograph is a device that translates motion from one place to another, often with a change in scale. Typically pantographs are mechanical in nature, based on the complimentary motion of opposite corners of a parallelogram, but you could make a pretty good argument that modern systems that accept movement inputs from a user and translate them elsewhere by computer are also members of the class. Robot-assisted surgery comes to mind. If you cared to have an even longer argument, you could also consider systems that scan items with laser photons in order to reproduce them on a lathe or CNC machine pantographs in spirit, if not in fact.

A visual or optical comparator is just a device that projects a magnified view of something up on a screen, along with a point, grid, or profile it needs to match, not unlike a microfiche viewer with a targeting reticule. They're still used in some areas, although software image processing is steadily gaining ground.

You'd be amazed at how many things still need a look-over by a human with a brain. The lack of human brains is how we got the sharply-angled board traces we have today, in fact. Computer-aided drafting was developed to a usable level in the 1980s, and predictably the people using it were mostly engineers. The kind of route-finding you do in those connect-the-dots puzzles, and that the electronics engineers did when drafting the boards, is one of those very slippery human things. You want to find the shortest path, to save on the precious metals you use as conductors, but the absolute shortest path (with reasonable tolerances) is often a very snaky curve that would require a large number of points to define. It's much simpler to work on a grid, hence the 45° and 90° angles -- this ensures that all trace paths can be defined exclusively by where their corners lie on a square coordinate system, and is much less calculation-intensive. This was a lot of what early graphics tablets (or digitizers) were used for, and some light pen systems.

Having watched my father do a lot of this as a kid, I gather that at least in modern CAD software, you can just pick things up and put them wherever you want, but that the autopathing gets very confused if you do it too much -- mostly it's better to let the computer figure out where the traces go and tell you if you want something impossible in 3D space. And if you screw up anyway, there's always blue wire.

Circuit boards don't have to be the ubiquitous green, either. That's just the color of the solder mask, a lacquer painted all over the parts of the board you don't want solder to stick to. It's mostly tradition at this point, but you can get boards in pretty much any color you like -- the second most common I've see is a dark navy blue, probably because copper traces and white silkscreening stand out best on those two colors. You're welcome to get neon purple, if you can find anyone offering it.

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bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky · 4 months

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My clinical coordinator is such a fucking cunt

I hate this woman with every fiber of my being. She is incompetent, she’s rude, she’s bad at her job- and she does not give a single fuck about any of the students she oversees. I usually try to be very understanding with people and give them the benefit of the doubt but she fucks us over every semester.

She promised to get people clinical sites that are closer to home- so naturally she took me from a site that’s 20 minutes away from my apartment and put me at a site that is an hour and a half away. And I know that it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and that some people might not be bothered by this. but I’m hanging on by a goddamn thread and for her to take me from a site that it close and move to me to a site that is far away is so goddamn ridiculous. She knows the program that we’re in is hard. She knows how much we’re struggling. She knows how stressed we are. She knows how badly we need sleep. But she doesn’t give a fuck. I’ll now have to wake up even fucking earlier than I already do to get to clinical on time. And the traffic in my city is so abysmal that if I have class after clinical, I have no idea how I’ll make it on time.

and she saves everything till the last second!!! It drives me insane. Cause she literally spends the whole semester sitting on her ass and sends us some random, incomprehensible (seriously, she needs a proofreader), fuckass emails every few weeks. and then when the semester is almost over, she's like OH MY GOD WE NEED YOU TO FILL OUT THIS PAPERWORK IMMEDIATELY!!! FILL OUT THESE FORMS ASAP!!! WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!!! like okay miss girl, if you sent this to me a few weeks prior, we wouldn't be in a rush. But she chooses to save shit till the final week of the semester and then when we start clinical late because SHE is lazy, she's like "why are you behind on your hours???"

she just can’t use her fucking brain. And any time you ask her the reasoning behind things, she takes it as an attack. She’s so insecure and immature that any question she receives is treated as disrespect- even if you’re extremely respectful and polite. It’s like she’s 15 years old.

last semester I didn't know where the fuck to go on my first day of clinical (I was going to a MASSIVE hospital) and instead of getting the info for me, she said "I encourage you to go look around". okay slay well I am not lewis nor am I clark and I dont have time to go wander a hospital that is a bazillion square feet. That place is gigantic and people (including employees) get lost there everyday. but she wanted to just send my ass there without telling me a building or a floor or anything??? are you nuts???

She just can’t communicate for shit. She doesn’t tell us anything. And when she does, she only gives us half the info. When we ask for the rest, she sees it as rude and chastises us for it.

I just hate this woman so much. I hate her to my core.

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protokirby · 5 months

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Oh by the way, forgot to mention last night.

Congratulations to Drayton to having the 4th set of complete sprites.

I can't remember when I started his but they were definitely before starting Crispin's. Drayton's took longer because of motivation issues as usual but they're done now.

I think--- my next closest to finishing are either Ryuki's or Hop's but will I start on Piers's or someone else's? That's the question of the whims of the goblins. Been wanting to begin work on Piers's sprites. He won't be a starter choice like I originally wanted because he's big and asymmetrical with no work-arounds for the asymmetry and starters have extra animations which would be kind of bad for the file size of the rom if I made Piers a starter choice.

Assuming I can finish this project at all, I plan to have an entire series with more different stories and a heavily decreased need for so many starter animations depending on what those stories call for so if things go well, Piers will be a starter someday.

Although I have an exact idea of which one in my plans will have Drayton and Crispin as starter choices--- the uhhhhhh--- the 7th. That feels like a bazillion years away but that's where they fit as starter choices in the plot in my head

(Not that they can't still be played as anyway- in like- a randomizer or somethin >:D) (And I can have them in the starter list while testing. They just won't have the proper animations for certain scenes and they won't stay in the list by the time it's done)

Yall I currently have 13 entire story ideas for this weird pokemon mystery dungeon mess and I have reason to suspect that more will inevitably come rjxtrfghm One of them is a prequel that involves some ridiculous thing with Victor and Gloria (swsh protags) and even the first one that's keeping mostly the base pokemon mystery dungeon explorers of sky story has some changes ranging from small to "what the flip". The vast amount of imagination sure is a trip, huh?

There's only 552 spaces to put stuff in and that means there isn't enough room to keep everything between these. A bunch of mons were removed in favor of other things but each one will have different ones. I'm likely to keep favorites in between games. We're probably almost always going to have Leon, for example and rarely will he be absent. A fun thing is deciding which digimon to stick in there they've got a bunch of evolutions :D Probably won't keep the same digimon between games unless the planned story directly calls for it.

The rom hack project is part of the paracosm. Imaginary multiverse stuff. I have starter choices I consider to be canon to the universe of the rom hack. (For the purpose of the following, I will bring up the reminder that if I mention a name, I'm talking about a pokemon/pokemon character unless directly specified, which I will specify in parenthesis) For the first, the team I see as canon is Ciel(megaman zero) and Allister. No clue how it got that way but I thought of it one day and went "oh yeah that is beautifully random and works in multiple ways storywise". In the second it's duskull and veemon(digimon). Because of reasons I shall keep secret for now like-- the first ain't even done why am I talking about a second?

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donttakeitsopersonal · 6 months

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Seeing internet drama like… match up or I suppose mirror the subplot of a webcomic I’m reading is so so fascinating. I mean it’s like drama that we’ve seen a bazillion times if you’ve spent enough time in the right circles but idk seeing it playing out too with real people got me thinking again.

Waffles under cut

Ima keep it vague even tho im an absolute nobody, knowing my luck, this will breach containment and then my unorthodox new ways of thinking will ruffle feathers haha but yeah.

Essentially the comic is about the aftermath of a murder and how people are living their lives after that. One of the accomplices is free and living their life and they’re also online. People find out and bully them, someone even suggested deleting their accounts and going offline for a while, but they don’t want to. One thing that is brought up with it is everyone keeps telling them they got to take accountability, which is true. But that’s got me asking well what does that look like? Like it can really look a lot of different ways but watching irl drama play out it makes me wonder if anything will ever be good enough for people. Like I’ve even seen this same scenario play out many times and there’s usually always a vocal group who just want the guilty party to be forever guilty. Is it good enough for them to take accountability, apologize, and rectify their behavior? (I’m talking low stakes drama here not like heinous abuse lol) it just really feels like if you ever make a tiny misstep online that’s your cross to bear forever. I feel like it’s very reductive and doesn’t allow the person to grow and change, which, isn’t that what we want? For people to grow and change and better themselves? Like idk man at this point in time if you can’t show me examples of someone doing XYZ shitty thing within the last year, like yknow something recent, I really couldn’t give a flying sideways fuck. If someone said “hey I did XYZ at this time and that was fucked and shitty and I’ve worked to change myself” and they haven’t done XYZ and did work to change themself, then idk man you sound incredibly immature and like you gotta mind your own business. Like it’s perfectly fine to be like “I don’t like this person they’re icky to me” that’s fucking fine you don’t need a good reason to not like people they can just give you general ick, water and oil don’t mix and you won’t like everyone you meet. You don’t have to be a bully tho 🙄🙄

OMG lemme waffle about other silly drama I saw that’s just like oh myfuckingod you do not need to and also hey wait a minute. So this one car influencer who is a very mean girl that’s also mean to other women while trying to present as a ✨Girl’s Girl✨™️ has had this, I shit yall not, YEARS beef with this other gal. So two face (that’s what ima call her lol) years ago, like BC(before covid) times TF was doing modeling and mechanic work, wow femme model on car soooo original /s 🙃so at this point in time she was actually a ✨Girl’s Girl✨™️, or at least pretended like it well enough lol, and was friends with some other blue collar girlies. She said she’d help them start their own OFs if they wanted and one took her up on that offer. Idk what happened exactly but TF started accusing said girl that she was copying her and taking her business. And like this was all so funny to me because like this just gave me DeviantArt sparkledog furry drama circa. 2007, like legit “yOu CaNt PaInT yOuR cAr PuRpLe!!11 YoU cOpIeD!!!!2!11!” Like bro this is straight up “you copied my design because you also have stripes on your tail” like day one internet shit, get with it girl. But also this is funny too because I seen her at that time basically copy someone else’s video like cmon. So anyways that basically made their friendship implode on itself and she has since then had a vengeance on this poor girl lol so here’s the nutty part, TF will constantly say “this girl is always copying everything I do, I saw her doing XYZ” which like is kinda inconspicuous when you hear it but then it’s like wait, you say you do not like this person, you try and avoid them, so on and w/e so it’s like wait,,, HOW do you know that??🤨unless you’re checking out her page and following what she does 👀 sussy. And like the other gal she’s cool and nice, we’ll call her GG, but I NEVER see her saying SHIT about TF unless TF did something like get her page flagged or something, which I feel is normal. And like mind yall this has been going on for over the span of years. So being an outside spectator to this all I seriously think TF is projecting onto GG, at least with the “oooh you stalking my page waaah” like girl idk you the only one posting videos about someone else 👀and also I feel like TF feels like I wanna say attacked but not really, maybe more like GG makes TF feel inadequate? But like I feel like seeing GG’s journey it’s what TF have strived for, like GG was a dealer mechanic, and now has her own shop with her mans and their friend. Like TF has only ever worked at like quick lube places and I think very very briefly at a custom shop or something. Like a month or less. And while I can say TF can perform the work, she is not what I would consider a high level mechanic. Like you just realistically have not seen that many cars, you’re not going to see the normal stuff that comes into places you’re not going to have that experience. Yeah working on your own stuff gives you skills a dealer or shop won’t but there’s far more you’ll learn in a shop, and I feel like deep down she knows that and feels threatened by it. Cause like girl why the hell else would you be paying so close attention to this game that you’d clown on her miscarrying like brruuuuuhhhhh you did not have tooooooooo 🥴🥴🥴that VIDEO could’ve stayed in the drafts😶 the fact she made a video too is big YIKES. But wow yeah it’s nutty asf, reality is stranger than fiction

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flydotnet · 10 months

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Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled).

That guy seemed like he was about to burst a blood vessel. He was goin' too hard too much.

I started this fic what feels like a bazillion years ago - it was supposed to come out last year I believe, but between my half-year job that sipped my Life Points away like I was some Yu-Gi-Oh character, various other sources of brainrot and Whumptober, I ended up finishing this fic a lot later than I'd have liked.

Well, I knew I'd have to postpone posting it until I was done with a previous prompt on the card for Reasons only known to myself (and Tekiro), so it's not that surprising of me I'd suppose.

The backstory of this one was inspired by a fanfic series on Pixiv where, at some point, Nitta confronts Kumi's bullies; but like I'm edgy as fuck so I took it in an angstier direction. Woops.

I'm just really glad this fic is done, it's been a long time coming. Also I need food for my stupidly niche-ass rarepair that crosses into crackship territory if you don't think about it hard enough.

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Sunny-Side Up

Summary: Shun has felt off for a couple days, but in his haze, doesn't quite get why. Somehow, his crush manages to read through his own unease.

Fandom: Captain Tsubasa Relationships: Nitta/Kumi (pre-rel)

Word Count: 4.2K words

AO3 version available here.

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo.

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In a sudden flash of awareness, Shun realizes how much of a mess he’s made.

There’s a video playing on his smartphone of someone wrapping gauze on a dummy’s arm. His smartphone is itself propped on some makeshift installation on top of the empty bathtub, threatening to fall if he hits it at just the right angle. There’s an empty bottle of disinfectant on the floor, its smell all over the bathroom, bandages all over the place, a first-aid kit wide open and spilling.

All that mess, yet his wound still looks the worst out of everything here. Oh, this is going to be a pain in the ass…

Whatever. He can handle it on his own. He doesn’t need Urabe, Misaki and especially not Sugimoto’s nosy ass to slip their noses into his bullshit. Mom and Dad trust him to be on his own so he’ll manage it on his own. Tutorials are all he needs to get by with whatever he doesn’t know yet. He’ll cook himself omurice, he’ll down a pill or two, and it’ll be fine. He’s fine, no need for anyone else, and especially not a manager who puts her nose everywhere (even if she’s lowkey cute – when she’s not being a brat who meddles in people’s business).

Fuck it. It’s stopped bleeding and it doesn’t even smell that bad anymore (it doesn’t make him want to puke, at least), so that should be enough. He’s got other stuff to take care of, like what he’s going to train tomorrow and his math homework. Dammit, he should’ve taken a shower before patching that wound! Oh well, he’ll just quickly wash himself in the sink, like Dad often does when he runs late to his flights. You shouldn’t wash a wound, right? He remembers that from when he had stitches for another injury. It makes some amount of sense.

Just staring at the mess he’s made is kind of discouraging, though. It’s been a long day (even longer than that, actually), even without taking into account the deep cut on his thigh. He still doesn’t quite to make of it, confused by his own actions. Man, he’s really not in the mood to think of that over, why is he being like that? All he needs to do is get some sleep and it’ll all be good. Eat, sleep, repeat. It’s easy.

Eh…

On second thought, cooking omurice very much sounds like a chore as well. What if he just made rice in the cooker and sunny side up eggs? That sounds like a good compromise. Same ingredients, less wok involved, he can survive that. As long as he takes a pill, he’ll be fine. No need to ask for anyone’s help, he’s self-sufficient. He’s been for a long time.

He doesn’t need anyone’s help, and especially not that of a certain nosy manager he’s going to have to deal with tomorrow first thing in the morning.

It’s not that Sugimoto is a bad person. Yes, sure, she’s still a bit obsessed with Tsubasa, despite how long it’s been since she’s apparently confessed her love to him, only to be turned down because Nakazawa has always been his main squeeze; but she’s mostly gotten over it in years, although that’s probably helped by the fact Tsubasa has gone to Brazil and taken nobody else with him, not even his own girlfriend. She’s hardworking, she’s enthusiastic and she’s always ready to get her hands dirty if it means helping Nakazawa or Nishimoto with their tasks. She’s a good person, dammit, he can’t take that away from her, and the team wouldn’t be the same without her.

Hell, Shun would even say she’s kind of cute with her pigtails and her bright eyes and her infectious energy.

But the issue is that Sugimoto is enthusiastic and nosy. She’s so fucking nosy, all over the place asking people this and that, if she can help them, and that’s exactly what he doesn’t want. She’s well-intentioned and butting in people’s business isn’t exclusive to her in this team (looking at you, Ishizaki): the issue here is that not only can she not shut it once something has hit her radar, but she’ll also make sure that thing is taken care of personally – and by God, Shun can’t imagine making his teammates lose their manager’s time over some stupid cut on his thigh.

Also, how are you even supposed to explain how and why you’ve got a cut on your thigh? You just don’t get a thing like that by playing soccer, Shun’s clever enough to know that. Even the clumsiest of soccer players wouldn’t manage to get a cut this high and this clean on his leg, not even while drunk off his ass. It’s clearly no accident, he realizes, and he has no lie to come up with that’d sound credible enough to get past her, even when taking Sugimoto’s credulity into account. She’s seen too many soccer matches to know he’d have to do it on purpose and slip on a knife for this wound to happen.

Doesn’t help one bit that Shun’s a terrible liar. There’s no way he’s getting past the classic test of seeing if the person in front of you is sweating as they’re retelling a supposedly innocent story. Hell, he’s seen Misaki do it one too many times for that to fool him; and if Misaki can’t pull off a poker face good enough to fool the team, then there’s no way in hell Shun’s pulling that off. Moreover, Urabe tends to feel that sort of things like you’d feel someone’s unease: he’ll ask every annoying question possible with a loud enough voice to make a conviction weaver dead in its tracks.

He almost cracks two eggs open on the hot non-stick pan before remembering he needs to add oil so it won’t stick. He doesn’t have the energy to scrub burnt eggs off tonight (he never does, to be fair, it’s annoying even on a good day), so he loses the twenty seconds that take in exchange for more sleeping time tonight.

He kind of misses Mom, in situations like that. Every time she’s here, she cooks him her signature stir-fry, and they all eat it, with Dad and sometimes their friends. Whenever his parents are here, the house is always warmer, and it’s more comfortable, even if he’s nowadays used to the echo of his footsteps and to whistle a song when he’s cooking. Of course, he knows they’re rarely here for a good reason, and besides, it’s what makes the days they are home the best in the year. He can hope they’ll be in Japan for the high school national tournament this year, Mom told him that the other day, and it made his heart flutter.

The chime of the rice cooker sounds a little different tonight, like the echo has made it more sinister.

It’s somewhat weird, Shun finds. He’s been making rice on his own for long enough for that chime to be nothing if familiar, so he has no idea why tonight it resonates a bit differently now. He’s going to attribute it to fatigue, for now, and maybe later down the line he’ll have some sort of answer about it. At the moment, all he should worry about is improving on his soccer skills, take care of his homework and, of course, cooking his dinner. That’s the most important step of his evening as of now.

Urgh, he should’ve paid more attention, instead of zoning out for no reason like he just did, like a moron. The yellows have completely opened, rendering them as dry as the whites, there are burnt edges all over those of the pan and he doesn’t have eggs to spare. Shit end to a shit day, he supposes – so may as well gulp them down. He isn’t even that hungry anyway. He’ll just eat them, wash himself and go to bed. His uniform can wait until the morning, and so can thinking about Sugimoto butting her nose into his business, and the fact he wouldn’t even mind that much. At least, she’d look at him, and they’d be up close and personal, and…

No, no, he would mind, actually! Just like he’d mind Nakazawa or Nishimoto not minding their own businesses, but especially Sugimoto! Explaining this whole mess to her sounds exhausting. Bah, if push comes to shove, he’ll just find an excuse when he’ll be more refreshed than now. He’ll be a better liar next time, or he’ll just hide everything just enough for a basic pretence to work.

At least tomorrow will be better – and if not tomorrow, then the day after.

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Once again, and for what feels like a vague nth time lately, Shun wakes up in a haze. He eats a breakfast just as hazy, presumably composed of leftover rice from yesterday fried with oil and chocolate (it surprisingly doesn’t taste bad, at least not enough to make him nauseous again). He tries to button his uniform vest but ends up giving up because he’s already spent all his patience on his dress shirt. He walks to school unable to walk in a straight line or quickly – it’s either one or the other. Urgh.

It’s been colder and colder for the past three days, and no amount of hot beverage or soft-boiled egg has been able to fix it – and goddamn is Shun tired of hearing people asking him if he’s fine. Yes, he is, shut the fuck up. You’re a chore for asking something so useless.

Although Shun has to admit, in the privacy of his own mind, that their doubts aren’t unfounded.

The wound on his leg hasn’t healed very well yet: if someone was to see it, or even the bandages that keep turning red without his approbation, they’d question it, and he’d have no choice but to explain how in the hell he got a cut that high yet that low at the same time. It’d then provoke some sort of domino effect, he’d guess, where Sugimoto would get involved because she’s a manager or something (sounds like an excuse), and that he can’t let it happen.

Come to think of it, if he could just get Nishimoto or Nakazawa not to tell anyone else about it, he’d be fine, would he? But the managers are close friends, they tell each other everything, and Shun can’t even risk Sugimoto hearing about it. If she was to learn of it, then…

Speaking of the devil, she just had to be there as soon as he was done changing. And here he was, hoping he’d be alone for a moment or two, enough time to get his crap together and look his Sunday best when he’s feeling anything but… (No, Shun, you’re just good. You’re doing just fine. Don’t whine, if you can walk, you’ve got nothing to cry about – you’re no quitter).

“Oh, good morning senpai!” She says with her usual smile. “I didn’t expect anyone to be here this early!”

Yep, she’s adorable all right, bouncy and luminous and everything of the sort.

“Good morning to you too, Sugimoto.”

Too bad she’s the one person he didn’t want to see, especially when he’s not made sure his stupid cut isn’t going to reopen yet.

“You’re going to practice shoots, right? I can help you get the balls back!”

“Yeah, Imma do that; but, like, you don’t have to help with it. Just make sure the clubroom is good for everyone else to use if they come.”

If they come, yeah, because morning practice isn’t the gold standard it used to be for some. Shun may also be hoping fewer people than usual get to see him because he didn’t exactly look… fresh when he was brushing his teeth (at least, that’s what he got through his haze). He can’t imagine it’s gotten better either.

“I’ve already taken care of preparations for the day, senpai.”

Uh…

“Oh, that’s good then.”

He helplessly watch her face twinge just a little.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Nitta? You look really pale today…”

And here’s why he really didn’t want to come across her all day: Sugimoto has a hawk’s eyes when it comes to things like that. According to his teammates, she used to be oblivious – blinded by her love for their captain, you know how it is, Nankatsu’s very identity was overwhelmingly Tsubasa’s to a sickening degree – but ever since he left for Brazil, she’s become the sharpest gaze on staff. Some say she may as well have been reading into their future. It’s, of course, impossible, but hey, for once, Shun’s willing to let it slide. It gives her an additional layer of depth he can’t deny but be allured by.

Oh, right. He’s supposed to lie to her now.

“Yeah, I’m all good.”

He feels something cold on his leg. He doesn’t really know what it is, but what he knows is that he needs to get away and onto the field as soon as possible before she realizes something’s up. But how does he do that without seeming suspicious?

“You really don’t look like it… Are you sure you’re not sick? You know you can take a day off, right? I promise you, people won’t blame you!”

“Nah, I’m fine, no need to fuss.”

He waits for her response, but all he gets in exchange is her widened eyes and a cold sweat pearling down his back.

“Nitta,” she says in a choked voice that’s so unlike her.

“Yeah?”

“You’re bleeding…”

In a snap of the gaze, Shun looks down at his leg and realizes, in unspoken horror, that the damn wound has already betrayed him: there’s a trail of red coursing down his thigh and shin, tainting his white socks, mocking him with its vicious rusty hues. Yeah, that one’s going to be difficult to explain, let alone hide anymore. Dammit, had he still been wearing his uniform, the black pants would’ve hidden that.

Guess lying by omission his way out of this situation isn’t on the table anymore… Unless?

“It’s, uhm… It’s a cut on my thigh,” he admits, trying to keep as many details out of there as possible. How does one accidentally cut his thigh?

“Stay here, I’m getting the first-aid kit!”

Sugimoto runs out of the main room to get to their small-ass infirmary, which leaves him time to flee out of there. Unfortunately, now that he knows he’s bleeding, he’s realising the damn thing stings, and it’s preventing him from actually attempting an escape – and she’s back already. Goddammit.

“Sit down anywhere, please.”

The worried tone of her voice makes him do the polar opposite of what he should: obeying her like a good little puppy and sitting on the nearest chair possible.

“It’s really no big deal,” he tries to argue anyway. “Just gimme the bandages, I’ll patch it up myself.” She stares at him with somewhat empty eyes. “What? I can wrap a wound, y’know.”

“It’s a manager’s job to take care of the players of her club,” she says as she kneels down to his legs. “Pull back your shorts just a little, please.”

It’s uncomfortable at best to actually strike some sort of balance between showing enough skin for her not to scold him, yet not enough for her to see whatever the hell he’s wearing underneath his shorts (come to think of it, what did he even put on this morning?). Why is he concerned about it now when he couldn’t be bothered when Nakazawa was seeing him almost entirely naked? No real idea, but for now, it’s very much an issue to immediately take care of.

Oh, wow, that bandage looks really fucking red. It was white when he put it on this morning, sure, but now, it’s a nasty amount of red. The thing won’t stop expanding too, like ink on paper.

“Oh my God,” Sugimoto barely manages to articulate, hands in front of her mouth and eyes open wide. “I need to check this, hang on, please.”

“You really don’t have to—”

He has to muffle a scream when she starts unwrapping the bandage, everything having stuck to his skin through a layer of sweat first, then with matted blood all around the cut.

“How long have you been injured for?”

The word hits him like a freight train.

“Uh… A couple days, I guess?”

This wasn’t supposed to make her worry even more.

“This should’ve healed in two or three days,” she says, trembling. “Your wound’s infected.”

Ah, that makes sense. Vaguely so, but it does.

“Crap.”

Sugimoto backs away a little, stares some more at his leg, and her face doesn’t get much better.

“Why did you let it get that bad, Nitta? You should’ve sensed something was wrong much earlier than that!”

Her voice is loud enough to rattle against all of his brain at once.

“H-hey, no need to yell at me! That shit happens sometimes!”

“What do you mean, ‘this happens sometimes’?! That’s an infected wound! Have you not cleaned it at all?!”

“Of course I didn’t! You’re not supposed to wet a wound!”

Sugimoto stares at him with all the disbelief in the world.

“You’re supposed to disinfect a wound! What are you saying?!”

“Last time I checked, when I had stitches, my doc told me not to!”

“It’s because you had stitches, senpai! But that’s just not the same, your wound’s already clean when you get stitches! Did you…” She trails on. “Did you not know this?”

Shun freezes when he realizes what he’s been doing for the past couple days has been stupid.

“Uh… No. I didn’t think about it, I guess?”

That doesn’t quell any of her disbelief in front of what the hell he’s telling her about.

“Why didn’t you ask for help, then?” She asks in an almost emotionless voice.

He’s once again sent for a loop there, just because he’s not sure himself. Shun’s never been too keen on getting help, because dependence has never run in his blood: he hates having to rely on other people for things beyond his control, let alone not being able to decide how much of a hand they should give him. What if he can’t pay them back, huh? Then what? He hates debts. He hates losing his sense of freedom and independence and that’s just how it is. No amount of feelings he can have for anyone will change that.

Sports are unrelated to that. Soccer is a collective sport, so of course, he knows he has to cooperate and rely on other people. Relying on other people for passes is fine. Asking someone else about how to dress a wound is fucking embarrassing.

“I don’t like that,” he spits at her without an afterthought, as if it was the whole story.

“You… don’t like asking for help,” Sugimoto drags through her teeth.

“Yeah.”

His head’s a little hazy, in no little amount due to the constant blood loss, as light as it’s been. It can’t be too good, he supposes.

“I suppose I understand that,” Sugimoto tells him as she starts cleaning the damn thing.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to.” He can’t quite see her much through the dizziness that’s slowly been creeping up and her odd positioning, hair falling in front of her face like a cascade. “Besides, you don’t look very capable of handling it yourself. You should’ve asked for help earlier.”

The urge to scream at her to shut the fuck up dries up before even his impulsive ass can do it. Instead, he deflates, a slow realization dawning on him: there’s no way he’s getting out of here without a very ugly truths or two coming out of his mouth, whether he wants it or not.

“I guess,” he snaps back, even if it sounds weak (as if he was so much tired than he’s supposed to be, as if he actually didn’t want to bite back when he should be spitting venom back at her).

“It’ll get very ugly, one day, if you don’t take good care of yourself.”

“What would you know about that?”

Her eyes squint. Shit, that wasn’t his wisest move – but what has been, lately? Clever people don’t get their wounds infected by sheer stupidity.

“I was there, at some point.”

The sentence is icy water down his back, uncomfortable and leaving a mark no matter what. He has no idea what she’s referring to, and his slow-moving nerves aren’t making the task any easier, and the more he tries thinking about it and the worst it gets – but like the shiver-inducing trail of an ice cube, he can’t ignore it, not entirely at least. Dammit.

You know, maybe Shun doesn’t know her as much as he’d like to say with certainty and all sorts of bravado, and that’s the saddest shit ever. He’s pretty much down bad for her, the way she handles everything as well as she can, the bounce of her pigtails, the spark in her eyes and all of the spunk he could ask for; and yet look at him, unable to tell if she’s actually gotten over Tsubasa and absolutely unknowing of her hardships. Too self-centred, as he’s always been.

“How did you end up with such a cut…?” Sugimoto whispers to herself, breaking the palpable silence. “It’s so deep, yet it’s in such a weird place…”

He didn’t want to hear that question, he really didn’t – especially from her.

“I dunno,” he tries lying. “Maybe I just slipped on something.”

The sting of disinfectant jolts through him, much more than it should’ve probably.

“Do you really think I’m this stupid, senpai?!” Sugimoto claps back with a snap, but her anger quickly fades away. “This is quite a deep gash, that doesn’t make sense for something to have happened to you on the field, or when slipping. It’s almost like you got cut there…” Her voice softens again, right as her fingers stop on top of his skin. “What actually happened? Is it something you can’t tell me…?”

“It’s, uh…”

Shun finds himself as a crossroad, now. Sugimoto’s asking for answers, but she also gives him a way out if he’s too much of a coward to come clean with all of this crap. It’s no grand burden, after all, and fatigue is a terrible thing that creeps into his bones and gnaws at everything there is to find, until it gets bored, and then you slip into the haze – oh, right, he was talking. Was supposed to, at least.

“It’s fine if you can’t, Nitta,” Sugimoto picks the train back up again.

Despite her words attempting to be reassuring, sounds clearly displeased; the hold on the bandage roll she’s wrapping around his thigh tight. It hurts a lot more than it should, right about now.

“I, uhm…” He gulps, suddenly sweaty, the lies dying in his throat.

Everything feels heavy on his chest, because he’s tired and sick and injured and in front of his crush, she’s hurting not to know what happened to him. How they got to this point, in a clubroom, in a sort of headlock where he really wants someone to know yet doesn’t want to open, and her who seems so sad he won’t let her in.

Maybe it’s fine to tell her.

Maybe it’s fine if she’s asking to know.

Maybe it’s fine if it’s the girl he loves.

“It’s a scissor cut,” he finally lets loose.

Sheer horror curses her face, her hands dropping the bandage roll.

“Someone did that to you with scissors…?” Her voice is as saddening to hear as her expression looks. “That’s awful…!”

She directly jumped to a culprit having done that, huh. Well, he did decide to be truthful with her… so there’s no way back. There’s no taking back. Plus, she kind of deserves to know.

“It was some girls in your class. They had that pair of scissors to cut shit in your locker, dunno what.” He chuckles, because it really was ridiculous, by the end of the day. “I confronted them and it actually did happen on accident. They weren’t reaching for my leg, y’know?”

Sugimoto puts away everything she used back into the first-aid kit.

“Why would you…”

He gets up, despite her worries and despite the pain in his leg that hasn’t gotten better at all. If anything, he’s just more aware of it now.

“I couldn’t let them hurt you anymore. Why didn’t you tell us?”

She doesn’t reply, at first. They’re so close, physically, he can almost hear her own heartbeats, or so it feels – or maybe it’s just blood reaching his head. He’s apparently running a fever and shit.

“Can I… tell you later?” She replies with all of the timidity in the world. “Please?”

“No problem.”

His focus slips for just a second and, as a result, he almost falls backwards a second later. She catches him in his fall, and that’s the one moment where his entire body has chosen to just stare in awe.

“I think we… should get you to the infirmary!” She nervously chuckles and he can’t help but smile.

“Sounds…” his stubborn bone snaps in half, “good to me, actually.”

He stands back up, limping on the side of his infected leg.

“Let me accompany you, then. You sound like you’ve been on your own for quite some time.”

“Yeah, that sounds right.”

“Let’s go, then.”

She leads the way, he follows holding her hand. It’s not just for balance.

#bad things happen bingo #captain tsubasa #hiding an injury #nitta shun #sugimoto kumi #shunkumi #bthb #back on my shunkumi bullshit and yu can't stop me

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milagrosoymagico · 4 years

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beta luz closet cosplay in which i only get the beanie right and even that could be better

#sorry i look kinda dead #and i took these sat in front of my bookshelf which was a questionable choice #and the light was so hot for some reason i was sweating #anyway here is my first attempt #they will get better lmao #i’m gonna get a more orangey beanie #i was even shocked to find this one in my drawer #i think it’s like a bazillion years old #closet cosplay #also tumblr hey it’s been a while since you’ve seen my face!#almost two years since i posted a selfie #i got a septum piercing since then #i’ll check the tag #my face #also i know i don’t look exactly like her 😭 luz is dominican and i am peruvian #we are very different #but i just feel like her so imma live that way #beta luz

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midnightnotegem · 2 years

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The Overlooked, Invisible Thread

TW! Mentions trauma, emotional + sexual abuse

The Ego.

Freud's definition of Ego has been one that's more often than not, misconstrued. His definition does not mean self-centeredness or selfishness. Here's a definition from Merriam-Webster that I'm going to explore in a bit, "the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world".

Although, despite the fact that I know there are differences, I'm pretty guilty of using it as such. ʚ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ɞ

On August 12th of 2022, something radically changed. No, nothing particularly life-altering happened that day. In fact, I was having a really great, fun and happy day until the late evening-early night arrived.

I had been waiting for 3 weeks and 6 days since the final argument began. There were quite a lot hurled at each other, however, it felt more appropriate to receive first, then give mine after, given there was gonna be a wait. What I read coming from ex was unbelievably apathetic. Actually, not just that. Some sort of assumption flew out, as if I must've known the religious implications of what I said. Straws were pulled from the hat with that "offense" though.

So there I was, confused and dwelling on decisions about our relationship for nearly one month. Not that one month was even long enough for me to have been solid in any. But, I had one idea mapped out and likely would've gone with it … except of course what happened on the 12th.

My ex claimed he had a busy life anymore, his supposed reason was work. Well, knowing it was yet another Friday, my mind got more curious as if this was gonna be another week where I wait or if I finally receive anything. As it turns out, he was actually hiding himself away from me and presumably, he was opening and closing Steam games, such as Sonic Origins or Sonic Mania, to work on one of his bazillion artwork ideas he has. … Wonder how long stuff like that has been going on, huh?

Steam, being his traitor, told me plenty. Even as him and I were confronting this exactly, he didn't care. We said our goodbyes after some talk.

I truly don't believe he believes this is the end, but it is. Confused?

I had been too, not able to pinpoint what it was. No matter how hard I searched or thought of, it didn't face me. Instead, it hid underneath my nose where I admitted plentiful times, yet didn't recognize it as a core reason.

Beneath the tangled weeds of being broken up with, while forced to make the breakup official, being in despair for so long, so much so that I became overly self-sacrificial, the emotional abuse, the sexual abuse and many moments of toxicity … there was something more.

Something I treasured so deeply.

So deeply, I could not hold onto that thought long enough to look at it.

It didn't occur to me what it was, until I found relief:

I wanted to be perceived as "the innocent", "the one that got away" … no thanks to his failures. The "how could you"s, I wanted to hear that spill. It… caught up. To me.

A simple mistake, that everybody knows a child doesn't mean, was taken too literal. We get angry, we say things we don't mean. When you're 15 years old, you do stupid shit. Not even just children, adults do it too. It was a heated argument and I said "I want to kill you". … How's this possible? We were thousands of miles apart. Either way, his parents were too bothered by a simple sentence, an admittance to his parents my ex supposedly regrets. Well.

Long story short, I learned very quickly to reign-in that anger when it felt like a miracle happened, that we could repair everything. Similarly reliving nearly a couple years prior. I was faulted for it all, no matter how it started, what he said, and even if he was the one who told his parents. I took it all. I ran with it, just so I could have a chance. A chance to prove myself, some redemption. I thought, "I loved this man so much. I couldn't have this happen again".

I did the very best I could, as the years went on. To make sure nothing got that out of control. Wasn't the greatest effort, I'm aware, but I was growing too. The fault in my own upbringing, my own behaviors and reactions, suddenly I had to own it and do something productive about it.

I grew into a person of chaos on one end, and gradually chaos into the other. All I cared about, was bettering myself for the relationship. It became my mission. As things fell apart more and more, that mission was more for him and I, than it was for his family's view of the relationship.

It was more apparent, after I came home on September of 2021, just how much I valued his mother's opinion specifically.

Hearing how she couldn't wait for me to be there during a video call when I already changed my mind about going, how she was a bit anxious to buy the tickets, how I would be viewed once I was there.

And when I heard these complaints about me from her once I was home, I broke. I didn't compliment their home, I didn't eat brownies I supposedly had, it was assumed I'd ask to help clean their dinner dishes.

… It didn't matter that I was sick the entire trip. To no one. No, I wasn't sick actually. I was far gone and lost into Collapse. I ate more than I normally could, I barely went to the bathroom, I hardly owned a voice, every waking moment was uncomfortable from the lack of bowel movements, I could hardly keep up with what was going on around me each day, I felt guilty and apologized for "being sick" to his face. … I should've seen it coming, as he passed it off as "it's okay". Nothing before the trip was truly acknowledged with care, despite it being totally alarming to the average.

I never loved anyone this hard, but I also never met anyone so dangerous.

ʚ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ɞ

…

Some way, some how. It was torn apart. That… sense of "I need to prove myself".

What I didn't realize, was it had evolved yet again.

No, I didn't JUST need to know that I was rightfully and justifiably viewed as the innocent one and the victim.

Like a beachball, "The Final Say" was bounced back and forth. He played it off as I was the one who had the final say in whether or not our relationship lasted. Though it's not obvious, it is possible he meant it differently than I did. A common thing, that he doesn't grab the same message as I, from most texts. No matter how clear it is explained.

I had many go-rounds to accomplish this. To my perspective, I failed. From December all the way up until now. …

Vanish.

I meant it this time, and everything felt as if it hit directly. It hit well, it was said well. Directly, no bullshit. Came across as "I'm finished here".

Maybe because I factually meant it. That it felt like peace.

As time went on that month-long wait, I began to see how unbearable sticking around was. I saw how much help he needed, and what I needed right now. Then some thoughts led to how apparent his need for help will become after some time, to his family.

… Must've been the easygoing solution, because I didn't think about that at all. No recognition on any level.

I now know what my ex is capable of, both in negative and positive terms.

The pedestal I kept him on was crumbling in front of me, and it combusted instead. No longer do I see him as someone special, nor do I see him as someone who I can imagine wishing to be in the right direction to turn our life together around.

All that bound me, died. For that, I am happy and free. There was the peace I yearned for. I didn't have to die for it, I had to play the long game… just as I promised myself I would. ❤️ ❤️‍🩹

#midnightnote3 #healing #trauma #healing journey #personal #abuse tw

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mittensmorgul · 3 years

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So for the most part, I outright reject the finale. But I do think, in light of the whole "Jimmy was supposed to be in the bar, and Dean was disappointed by that because his perfect heaven would have Cas in it" just makes me all the more convinced that the final episode was some kind of djinn dream. Like.... There's no other explanation in my opinion. If Dean's perfect heaven was supposed to have Cas, and he tragically gets faked out by Jimmy (????? Why tf would jimmy be there anyway), it just proves that it's not ACTUALLY heaven. That, along with he El Sol beer he's drinking is all the evidence I need. I think after 15x19, Dean and Sam got whammied by some monster, and are stuck in a hallucination, and that's what we're seeing. (My headcanon is that it's actually The Empty doing it, because it knows if it doesn't keep Dean and Sam occupied and spinning in circles, they'll invade the Empty to save Cas. So its trying to prevent that) :)

Hello, anon friendo! I am gonna start by offering the socially distanced version of a high five, because yeah... There is just so much to unpack here, and you provided such a succinct and all-encompassing series of statements to start from. Thank you!

*flings open array of questionable suitcases*

First off, Congrats on having rejected the finale. I know a lot of folks are still struggling with that one, for many reasons. But you have hit upon so many of the points I’ve been trying to make about the finale since it aired. I’d just like to start with some of the assumptions I’ve heard from folks about the finale that make it impossible for me to consider it fully honestly canon. Because so much about it just makes no goshdang sense... like... not at all...

One of the biggest issues I have surrounding the reception of the finale in parts of fandom is that it portrayed a “happy ending.” The show itself spent the entire final season telling us that a gravestone marked Winchester was not and never would be a happy ending (thank you Becky Rosen-- words I never thought I’d say, but honestly and most sincerely meant). Let’s break this down a bit.

Starting from the assumption that “heaven was fixed” so that characters could have true free will there, making it satisfying in any way that Dean died so young and never got to truly experience happiness during life, I would like anyone who has adopted this attitude to then explain Kansas the band. I mean... explain that in any satisfactory canon-compliant way. (hint: you can’t. it makes zero sense in canon, if heaven is truly reformed and “happy” with everyone in possession of free will.)

Which brings me to Misha’s comments about Jimmy being in the Roadhouse. Why, if heaven were truly fixed, would Jimmy ever in a bazillion years attend a party for Dean Winchester? If Heaven were truly a “happy” ending for Dean, why introduce this element of eternal tragedy and heartbreak to his heaven experience? Why taunt him with the eternal loss of Cas-- even if you don’t think he reciprocated Cas’s romantic feelings, he was canonically the best friend Dean ever had, and being forced to exist forever in a place where he had everyone else he ever cared for except for Cas? Is frankly horrific.

How the actual fuck is that a happy ending, in any sense of the word?

How is this the sort of heaven that Dean would’ve made for himself before it was “fixed?” At least in the memorex heaven, he could’ve lived in oblivious peace with Cas, even if it was always just his own memories and not ~actually Cas~. I honestly think that would’ve been happier than the abject tragedy of what we did get, and what we would’ve gotten had the original script played out.

All of this kind of makes me wonder if they ever even actually defeated Chuck. Like... it feels more like Dean got pulled into the Empty at that moment with Cas and Billie, and everything else after that point was the Empty’s endless experience of sorrow and despair we knew it subject its charges to. So that’s one potential for what could’ve actually happened. I mean, everything about the finale was sorrow and despair, you know? Dean didn’t even get to enjoy his pie at a pie festival because Sam smashed in in his face. How is any of it happy, in any way?

Because if that was actually heaven, there wasn’t actually any free will (because why tf would Kansas the band have chosen to put on that concert? why tf would Jimmy have been there, just to torment Dean with the taunt of Cas returning to him only to have that hope snatched away again? It’s cruel. It’s, in fact, a source of intense despair).

The djinn theory could also work, and I’ve read some excellent fix-it fic using that as a premise. But that doesn’t really explain what happened to Jack (and Amara, since she was in there with them) after hoovering up Chuck’s power, you know? I think the simplest explanations in canon are that Chuck actually won via the unified power of Light and Dark being transferred into Jack and effectively using him as a vessel. With Sam and Dean convinced they’d won, they effectively stopped resisting Chuck’s story for them, and using Jack’s understanding of humanity and the Winchesters specifically, Chuck finally was able to implement a version of his story that the Winchesters would just waltz into without thinking it was supernaturally influenced at all. Going bigger and bigger with monsters and cosmic troubles hadn’t worked, but going so small Sam and Dean would barely even notice the influence-- even with the incongruous reappearance of a vampire that appeared in their lives once, for like two whole minutes 15 years ago, and an unsolved case from the journal from more than 30 years ago that John had never even linked to vampires at all.

At this point, I need to mention that I’m watching 10.23 as I type this up. An episode in which we confront the Mark, along with Death, and Dean’s despair, where he learns a version of the truth (but by no means the full truth, or even accurate truth in some respects) about Chuck’s Story, Amara/The Darkness, etc. That would unfold more fully over the next five seasons. And what was the case Dean took in this episode? Vampires. LOLOL omg this show is nothing if not horrifically consistent, yes?

So because of this, I went haring off through my own blog looking for a post I made a long time ago about the symbolism of how various monsters are used on this show (because again, consistency). I got sidetracked by other posts in my monsters tag, including this from after 15.09 aired, which feels particularly awfully relevant. This was my reaction to Chuck’s Story he showed Sam in that episode, about what the future would look like should he successfully trap Chuck with a Mark, and which... yeah is basically exactly thematically consistent with what we saw in the finale, right down to a cheesy twist on vampires. Read the whole post right here, but this is the part that reached up and punched me in the face:

this is how Dean personally reacts when he loses Cas. We know how he reacts when he loses anyone else– think about what he did when Charlie died. He went on a murder rampage against the Stynes for killing her. When Mary died he broke some furniture and went full bore toward both resurrecting her and stopping Jack. But without Cas, Dean loses the will to fight. Sam has… always been different. He referenced Jess in 15.04 to remind us of how he was after she died in the pilot episode. Just like John, he picked up the revenge mission and ran with it. But for Dean, Cas is different. Without Cas… Dean gives up.

Because... Dean gave up. Sure, he and Sam weren’t overrun by vampires in the end. Chuck knew they’d never stop fighting the monsters, one way or another. The only way to get Dean to give up is something Chuck hadn’t quite figured out yet... maybe not until after 15.17, after confronting Cas in the hallway of the bunker, after absorbing Amara’s power, knowledge, and perspective on Dean.

Chuck needed Dean to give up, and honestly? Pushing Billie to clear him off the table and send him (and Cas, that pesky angel who never did what he was told) to the Empty would’ve been a direct way to deal with that... pretty much akin to having one sibling locked in a cage forever, yes?

Also, still looking through my monsters tag, I’m reminded of 14.15, and still cannot differentiate the version of Heaven in 15.20 from what was done to the people of that town. This... is not... paradise. This is actively what Dean has been insisting is the OPPOSITE of paradise since like… 4.22… No ending where Dean was a “Stepford bitch in paradise” ever had the possibility of being “happy,” at the core of things, and this “fixed” version of Heaven just doesn’t hold up to any degree of inspection. Something is seriously wrong here. https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/183465650390/so-can-we-talk-about-this-monster-of-the-week-for

And since I was unable to find the post I wrote who knows how long ago about Monsters and how they’re symbolically used on Supernatural to represent larger themes in the episode, I’ll just attempt to sum up what Vampires have been used for. Revenge. Vampires are always, in some way connected to themes of revenge.

(and hooray, I found at least a post adjacent to the one I’ve spent the last four hours trying to find... https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/187207052080/i-obviously-did-not-think-this-through, where I mention that shapeshifters are about revealing hidden truths (mostly about Dean since most shapeshifters are connected to Dean), zombies are about grief and the inability to move past it.)

So why... why at the end of their road is the monster that comes after them-- literally FOR REVENGE for something that had never been blamed on Sam or Dean to begin with, from season 1, directly connected to John’s revenge mission and the first time they learned about the Colt AND the first time they learned in canon that Vampires were even real... like... this feels very specifically like some kind of layers-of-meta levels of shade on them, you know? Vampires are for revenge, so what vengeance exactly is being visited upon Sam and Dean in this episode? If not Chuck’s entire story for them itself?

So yeah, 100% agree, something is incredibly rotten in the finale. And I am sick to effing death of people trying to convince us that anything about this was “good” or “happy” or “satisfying” in any way. Or even “how it was always supposed to end” with Dean dead bloody, as if the entire back half of the series hadn’t been suggesting that a true win was the subversion of all of Chuck’s story for them, and Dean finally being able to have his chosen family all alive, happy, and chilling on a beach somewhere watching the sunset. Nothing will ever convince me that the ending portrayed in 15.20 wasn’t exactly how Chuck thought he “won,” rendering it entirely irrelevant to the rest of canon, unless all of canon was ultimately the tragedy we’d been encouraged to believe would be firmly defeated in the end.

Folks, you can’t have it both ways.

#spn 15.20 #chuck's process #if this was the 'happy' ending for dean they sure did fail big time to make it actually happy!#it makes me feel sick thinking that dean's happy heaven ending was more like an eternal pit of torment #like actively tormenting him and taunting him with the fact that cas was truly gone forever #like wow they went all the fuck out to make it clear that even in heaven #dean would never be allowed to respond to cas's declaration of love #like... it's the most hurtful and hateful thing the show could possibly have done to us #and it still fucks me up knowing there's people who think this heaven was a 'good' ending for dean #like... fuck that entirely and with extreme prejudice #i feel like i have not been emphatic enough about my absolute hatred for this episode in these tags #but sadly there are limitations to expressing the actual feelings i'm feeling in the english language #sometimes the only effective word for these feelings involves velociraptor screeching #Anonymous

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adultingautistic · 4 years

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I will spend so much time trying to say something in the nicest way possible and to sugarcoat it as much as possible (for example when somebody asks for my honest opinion on something) and then people will say “oh wow you’re so blunt. You never sugarcoat things”. Yes I do!!! Is there even a way to sugarcoat things without just lying ?

Gosh, this is a hard one. First, the definition of what is “lying” is very different between allistics and autistics. The way we define “lying” is “something that is not true”. You would THINK allistics would define lying this way and if you ask them, they’ll tell you this is how they define it, but it’s not. Their definition of lying is WAY more fuzzy, and goes something along the lines of “Saying something to intentionally mislead a person, with the intent to do harm.” But it changes, it’s fuzzy, I don’t exactly understand them on this.

This difference in the definition of “lying” matters a lot, because of this conversation:

Allistic: “Would you go with your father to the store please?”

Autistic: “No, I hate going in his car because it smells awful.”

Allistic: “Why are you so blunt and rude?”

I think every autistic has been accused of being blunt and rude a bazillion times in their life. And so we try to fix it, and “sugarcoat” the truth, like this:

Allistic: “Would you go with your father to the store please?”

Autistic: “I kind of don’t want to, because it’s not the best experience for me having to smell dad’s car.”

Allistic: “Why do you have to be so blunt and rude?”

Why are they still calling you that, when you changed the sentence so much to try to soften it? The answer is because you still spoke the truth. And they don’t want to hear the truth! The truth makes them upset. I do not know why the truth makes them upset, it’s one of life’s greatest mysteries. But it does.

So this is the conversation they want:

Allistic: “Would you go with your father to the store please?”

Autistic: “I’d actually rather not, I’m sorry.”

Allistic: “Why?”

Autistic: “I’d really just rather not, right now.”

To us, this is a lie, because it isn’t that you’d rather not, it’s that you can’t, you can’t go in that disgusting car, because it’s a horrible environment, and being in that smelly car is painful for you, and it has nothing to do with what you’d “prefer”.

But to allistics, the answer is just “no”, and that’s all they hear, and they’re so happy you didn’t ‘insult’ dad’s smelly car.

WHY ARE THEY LIKE THIS?!?!?!!?? I wish I knew that answer. I really, really do. I can only tell you that they are like this; I have no idea why they are like this.

So yes, from our perspective, they want you to lie. They don’t want to know the truth, because it makes them upset for some reason. But keep in mind that from their perspective, this isn’t lying.

So, to answer your question, “Is there a way to sugar coat it enough without actually lying?” It took me YEARS to find a solution to this, but I found one! It’s called “Being vague.”

Allistic: “Would you go to the store with your father, please?”

Autistic: “I’m not able to do that, I’m sorry.”

Allistic: “Why not?”

Autistic: “I’m just not in a place where I can do that right now.”

Now you’ve been vague. You haven’t lied, but you haven’t said the underlying reason, either. Sometimes, this is all they want and the conversation will stop here. If it does, GREAT. Do not say anything further. You have communicated that you’re not going, and it’s done. If the allistic just says “Okay” or “Fine”, then the conversation is over, and do not continue it, no matter how much you may want to say the real reason. They’re not asking, let it drop.

But if they’re not satisfied, and say something like:

Allistic: “I don’t really understand what the problem is.”

Now you will have to tell the truth- but! You’ve prepared the allistic that “something unpleasant is coming.” You’ve built a “conversation cushion”. From our point of view this looks like beating around the bush- but they need this padding. They get hurt without it.

So now that we’ve prepared the allistic that something unpleasant is coming, it’s time to actually say it.

WARNING: BODY LANGUAGE NEEDED HERE

Autistic: *lean in closer to the person, or step nearer to them, and make your voice softer, just above a whisper. If you are good at facial expressions, look apologetic or mildly sad*

Autistic: *softly* “His car doesn’t smell so great, and it makes me feel really sick when I go in it.”

Allistic: “Oh, I didn’t realize. I’ll ask him to take my car when you go, is that okay?”

Autistic: “That’s fine.”

BAM! The communication has happened! WHAT CHANGED?

1) You gave them pre-warning padding by “being vague”.

2) Body language/facial expressions

“But Snazzy, doing this is a lot of work- that’s exhausting.”

IT IS. It’s very exhausting, because this is masking. This is not who you really are. You’re putting on a show for someone else’s sake. This is why after 2 hours of socializing with a mask on I need a nap.

But sometimes, the results are really worth it. You will have to judge for yourself when it’s time to use your Mask Powers. But if you practice this kind of “being vague” before you say a “negative” thing about someone, they will not call you “blunt” or “rude” nearly as often. And like anything in life, the more you practice it, the easier it becomes.

#actuallyautistic #actually autistic #communication #body language #facial expressions #conversation #social interaction #ask

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autumnwoodsdreamer · 4 years

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Hey, just wanted to say I kove your blog. Would you mind doing a bit of meta for Avengers Asssemble vs MCU. I’ve also recently developed this sort-of SU where after Endgam MCU Tony wakes up as AA Tony, and goes “actually I like these Avengers more, can I keep them?” And wondered of your thoughts on that.

Thank you for such a lovely ask (and giving me an excuse to gush about Avengers!)

You have no idea how much I dream of MCU!Tony waking up as AA!Tony and finally getting to experience the team as he believed it could be! Might leave my thoughts on that for another post but, yes, I so want to see that too!

Okay, onto the analysis! Gonna start with a little disclaimer: I recognize and respect that the MCU and Avengers Assembe are two separate iterations, told through different mediums with their own unique advantages and limitations. So don’t anyone worry: I’m not gonna hate on either of them. Now that that’s said, here’s why AA is superior...

In a nutshell, the Avengers Assemble team is what their MCU counterparts could have been had they made the choice to stay together.

See, their universes are practically identical up until the Battle of New York. But, in the MCU, they just called it a day after that and went off to fight their own battles like lone gunslingers.

Meanwhile, in AA, the team stayed together after their first victory. Granted, it wasn’t smooth sailing and it didn’t work out immediately: they had some falling out we aren’t shown (Tony repeatedly claims it’s his fault, but given his guilt complex, that may not be 100% true) and they broke up the band for a time. But they came back together in a heartbeat when they thought they had to avenge Cap; then, seeing their potential, seeing that they really were stronger as a team, they chose to stay assembled.

From there on, the universes are so completely dissimilar, it’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.

In AA, they face dozens of bad guys and disasters on a regular basis, and they face them together.

MCU: they have, like, one batch of bad guys in a blue moon and either tackle them alone, or on a good day, maybe two or three of them will team-up. They only drag everyone into the same room when it’s absolutely necessary (though what constitutes “necessary” is still up in the air because I think Hydra-is-actually-SHIELD calls for a full assembly, Steven).

AA: in between missions, they live together in the Tower, training and refining their skills as individuals as well as a team.

MCU: again: lone gunslingers.

AA: they obey just laws, try their hardest to minimalize collateral damage, always take the time to evacuate an area of civilians, don’t rush into foreign countries without clearance.

MCU: See: Captain America: Civil War (2016)

AA: when one of them does something totally out of character (e.g. Tony helping Galactus consume an inhabited planet, or Natasha stealing the Infinity Gems) they don’t take it on face value. It shocks them, yes, but it doesn’t immediately shake their faith. They hold on, try to understand, try to step back and see if there’s a bigger issue at play, and when they find the reason, they throw everything into supporting their teammate.

MCU: whatever trust they have is... tenuous, at best, and they give each other up way too easily. (Both Age of Ultron and Civil War expose this).

AA: they aren’t just a team, they aren’t even just friends: they’re a family. They have inside jokes, they play video games in their downtime, and they pull petty pranks on each other. Shawarma Night is a thing. They are forever stealing each other’s food (“If you wanna blame yourself for something, blame yourself for eating Hulk’s guacamole... because he’s gonna smash me for that.”) They even do each other’s laundry! Now, those things may seem silly, but I can tell you: when you live with a bunch of people for a long time, a good sense of humour is indicative of a good relationship and a healthy environment. My mom once told me that a peaceful home isn’t necessarily a quiet one: it’s one where you feel safe to speak up, to be loud, to laugh or cry. This team has exactly that.

MCU: years and years of supposedly working together, and yet they know next to nothing about each other. (“Do we know if she had a family?” What?!)

AA: reduced Thanos to atoms in their 2nd season; only took eight of them and some civilians with bricks. No one died and they even created world peace for a weekend.

MCU: couldn’t defeat Thanos without messing up a couple of timelines, pulling in entire armies and a bazillion heroes from all over the galaxy, and losing two founding Avengers in the process.

I have so many other areas I could delve into, like their Civil Wars or how much I adore this version of Sam Wilson, but I’ll conclude with: the Avengers Assemble team is what we all hoped the MCU would become. This version of the team knows and trusts and—let’s just say it—they love each other, and that makes them strong and it makes their whole world brighter.

The MCU Avengers... would never have survived the AA universe.

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byorder-fanfic · 4 years

Text

Finn’s Lost Loves

Summary: Finn’s lost more than anyone else knew because of the war, and every stupid thing his family have done afterwards to keep themselves in charge.

Word count: 2019

Warnings: Mentions war and blood, talks about eating disorder, self harm and self-esteem, and homophobia (only a little bit, period accurate), a lot of toxic masculinity

Author’s note: This is a lot of angst with little bits of fluff and a sad ending. Sorry. It’s basically an overview of Finn’s character, backstory and his relationships with the family that we’ve never gotten to see! It’s based off a piece of prose in my drafts, so if you guys like this, I might post that as well. Hope you enjoy, and please comment, I love hearing your opinions and any constructive criticism you might have xx

Finn loved books. Once upon a time, he really did. He loved the way Tommy did the voices, and Arthur made those wild motions with his hands, and John could always make him laugh as he told him about that thing that happened in the pub last week. He loved how Ada and Polly would tuck him up in bed, place a kiss on his temple and read the letters from the boys. Then they came back, and he didn’t need to read letters. Or books. Or anything really. Soon, he didn’t even go to school. He just wanted to be with his brothers. Now they tell him to piss off more than they beg him to stay. Tommy and Polly scold him for not being able to read off the betting boards, and John makes everyone else laugh when he holds a big volume under Finn’s nose, so that everyone knew that Finn was still illiterate. Finn hates books.

Finn loved Church. He didn’t need Polly to drag him by the heels as he sobbed under the Virgin Mary’s stare like his brothers when he hopped, skipped and a jumped all his way down the road. He always sat by Isaiah, the two boys out-screaming each other in the hymns and seeing who Polly would scold first. He wore the crucifix everyday, and treated his rosary with all the sacred carefulness a six year old could manage. He loved the psalms and Jeremiah’s voice ringing through the streets and the way everyone was always together (even Charlie) on Sunday. Then he had to light candles, praying for his brothers’ safety that was only answered with their damnation as they dragged back blood and French mud into Watery Lane. Now he cries through the paper thin pages of a Bible and his only prayers are that the boys never see his tears. What did he have to cry about after all? He was never a soldier, but he should learn to be a man. Finn hates Church.

Finn loved healing. Ada dragged him along to her nursing classes and soon his only reason to come to Church was to learn how to tie bandages and fix up cuts and bruises. No one noticed his long absences- they either assumed he went to school still, or they were far too busy with the race tracks to care for the whereabouts of their youngest brother. But then he'd slipped up, and he'd never seen his brothers laugh so hard when he proudly told Polly he was going to be a nurse one day. Even his aunt and sister, usually the ones on his side, had to purse their lips together as Arthur roared out: "Hear that, Tom? We got ourselves a Nurse Shelby here! Want a dress and hat to go with it?" He told them all to fuck off and stamped out, but he didn't understand what he said that was so funny. When he asked Isaiah, who had just turned fourteen and starting to see Finn less and less, he just said that being a nurse was a woman's job. He didn't like being laughed at for being a girl, but he didn't know why. He still hoarded textbooks about anatomy and the like under his bed, tracing over the detailed pictures with his skeleton finger as he wished. And wished. And wished. And almost prayed that he could read the little ink words. When he found Arthur with another red line on his neck, he offered him some medicine to cure his big brother's blues, thinking just a bit of Tokyo would keep his brother here with him. No one asked why Finn was sad. Oh well, at least he could protect his brothers now. Finn hates healing. Finn loved food. Always the big eater in the Shelby household, he managed to always have a full stomach despite the poverty that reigned. He was a stickler for sweets, though, and as soon as he mastered the art of sneaking rings and wallets from unsuspecting strangers, he soon graduated to thieving lollipops and boiled sweets and even some toffees that he proudly deposited into his aunt's hand with a toothy grin. But the boys would look into his empty plate and his skinny frame and tell him he'd better watch out, soon he might actually have a shape under those bulky clothes. They always laughed, and he felt himself completely embarrassed at the dinner table. He dumped more sugar than milk into his tea and stole chips when they went to the seaside. He'd always offer to share, wanting to provide for them for once, but they'd tell him he was the one who needed it. He sees his ribs and the little vertebrae of his spine and wonders why can't he just be strong like his brothers. Even though he despises it, he picks up boxing to fill out his form. Maybe training with Isaiah was an extra benefit, but the older boy had long since talked to Finn on the regular, and made a point to laugh at him when he fell onto the floor. So, Finn graduated from second helpings of lunch and too-sweet tea to the sour delights of whiskey and cigarettes. Just like his brothers. Finn hates food. Finn loves his family. He loves Polly, the mother he never had, and will never feel like he does enough to repay her for his entire childhood. Then Michael came back, and soon there wasn't any chore lists on the downstairs table for someone to read out for him, or little check ups throughout the day as she makes sure he's okay. That was when he realised exactly why Polly raised him in her empty arms. He loves Arthur: his eldest brother, who used to lift him up on his shoulders and teach him to draw. Finn still has faded old pictures of galloping stallions (signed in block letters: A.W.S) slipped between the filled out pages of the sketchbooks he hides in his wardrobe. Then Arthur came back, with what everyone calls Flanders Blues, but no one explains, and Finn feels like he's losing his brother everyday when he comes back smelling like a brewery with blood on his fists. Finn loves Tommy. A father figure to him, the kind of man he wants to be when he grows up. But then Greta died and Tommy went to war, and the man who took him horse riding every weekend was gone, and this Tommy was colder. Finn loves John as the best friend he's ever had, always laughing together, giving sometimes useful advice and finding days to just spend time with each other. Despite John's bazillion kids, widowerhood, and then his new wife, he's always had time to spare for his little brother. John was the one who told him what bisexual was when he found Finn sobbing in his room, he was the one that took him to the doctor when he passed out from malnutrition, and he's the one that made him swear to never use razor blades on himself again. Finn loves Ada. He sees why Freddie calls her an angel, and used to love it when she pretended to take Finn to the library when in fact they were both slipping away to a Communist meeting, which would usually end up in Ada and Freddie slipping away and leaving Finn in the trusted supervision of leftist radicals that he happily chatted away to. Ada always took care of him, making sure he was never involved in the business (on either side) and telling him that being a soldier is a life sentence, not an honour. He lives because Ada keeps him safe and sane. Then Ada leaves. Finn hates the Shelby name that everyone screams at him like a condemnation, that invites slurs and hatred that only he gets because he doesn't look like a proper Shelby man. Finn hates his family. Finn loved Isaiah. A childhood crush that brought butterflies to his stomach and blushes to his freckled face. He sketched the boy's face so many times, he knew it by memory. They held hands when they were chased down the streets, laughing and sprinting as their spoils stayed securely in their pockets. But Isaiah was older than him. Soon after adolescence hit the Jesus boy and Peaky Blinders offered him a role, without the constant of Church, the two greatest of friends became almost strangers to one another. But Finn still loved him. He never told anyone, of course. He knew he wasn't a real homosexual, because he most certainly did enjoy holding hands and kissing the cheeks of girls his age (poor boy was flustered to ever do more!) but his heart still belonged to the preacher's boy. With more faithful women in the family than ever before, Finn knew he would be crucified if he ever told anyone. John was the only one who knew, and that was based on the fact he paid more attention to his brother than anyone else combined. He said he should just go for it, but Finn knew Isaiah couldn't be like him. And even if Jeremiah was always the kindest man that Finn ever met, he still didn't trust that the cross on his neck wouldn't shame him or laugh at him for the fact he was completely enamoured with his son. Then Finn got drunk, and when he woke up, his entire family knew exactly how he felt and Isaiah wouldn't look at him in the eye. He ran away to the stables, crying on Uncle Charlie's shoulder who told it would be alright. He made sure to keep an eye on Finn ever since, keeping an eye on his wrists and fists. The incident was soon forgot by everyone but him. Finn couldn't find it in him to hate Isaiah, but he knew he didn't love him any more. Finn has never loved Michael. He thought he could, at first, when he saw the tweed suit and a face more innocent than his. But then Tommy promoted him almost on the spot, and Finn had never at once felt so much rage bubble inside him. Everything he has done for his brothers, every passion he sacrificed, every humiliation he shouldered, just so they could see him as an equal. But no, there are only three Shelby brothers as far as anyone else is concerned, and Finn carries on as errand boy. He ignores all Ada's good advice, and swear that he will make his brothers proud of him one day. So, he puts on the thorn crown of a Peaky cap and wears the waistcoat and wool coat of his brother's likeness, and parades about Small Heath like he actually was apart of the makeshift royal family. Then Finn found Michael and Isaiah kissing in the alleyway. Even though Finn had made a point to announce that his brothers had started giving him more work, Isaiah still fucked off to the pub with Michael every night, devoting his time and attention to only him, and Finn couldn't understand why. Now he did. If Finn had been violent like Arthur, he certainly wouldn't have thought twice about taking the cup on his curls and cutting the smirk off of his cousin. He had stolen his brothers' respect, his surrogate mother's attention, his place in the business, the affections of the one boy Finn had ever loved. He had stolen Finn's everything, and Finn hated him. They both froze and stuttered. Excuses about just being friends, just experimenting, but he saw the way they held each others shaking hands just as he and Isaiah used to hold onto each other as they raced through the streets. "I'm glad you're together." He shocked them both with a forced smile. "You both deserve to be happy." The two were kinder to him after that, almost back to the old friendship he had missed, and Finn knew he didn't hate Michael. Or Isaiah. Or any of his family, really. No, Finn hated himself.

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phantomphangphucker · 4 years

Text

Ectober Day 26: Aim - Would You Like Some Bullets With That, Sir?

Vlad would absolutely have a few people who want him extra dead and maybe one or two actually willing to try. Too bad that doesn’t really work when the guy’s already half-dead. In fact, it does pretty well nothing other than provide mild amusement. Danny gets more of a kick out of it than the billionaire does though.

Danny and Vlad were having a decent walk and talk, a decent bonding experience. Surprising, he knows. But one of the key words there was ‘were’, because of course him and Vlad can’t be getting along without pissing off the universe.

Danny had been pointing the straw of his green tea matcha Frappuccino, with more than a couple espresso shots mixed in, at Vlad; trying to explain the nuances of food-related puns, because if he’s going to influence one thing it’s going to be Vlad’s tendency to use foods as swears. Vlad wasn’t exactly being receptive but hey, neither was Danny on the whole ‘etiquette’ lessons the man was trying to give him. But all that got interrupted when a big ass stereotypical white van pulled up with a screech and the doors slide open to a dude with a fucking machine gun. Well fine, handheld Gatling gun is more accurate but sounds a little less cool; besides it’s still technically a machine gun. Which is, in Danny’s opinion, massive fucking overkill. Vlad would be inclined to agree.

Needless to say, they get shot. A lot. Repeatedly. It’s very loud.

All the bystanders around physically pause, stunned a bit stupid that this was happening in Amity of all places not to mention rather desensitised to violence; regardless everyone starts booking it because, y’ know, big ass gun. Vlad actually crouches and moves to cover his head while flashing angry red eyes, he’s dealt with a fair few assassination attempts but in broad daylight? Really? He’ll give them a few points for having the guts. Danny meanwhile, is way too used to getting shot at to even react beyond just standing there at first, before glancing at his cup -which is draining all its contents through the holes onto the road- and grumbling a bit. The gun man stops when Danny bends over and starts laughing though. Even Vlad gives Danny some concerned looks as Danny waves the gun guy off with one hand on his knees, “sorry! It’s- it’s just! Just that! No ones ever-ever shot me! Shot me with a real- real gun!”. Danny sits on the ground and continues laughing while effectively bleeding out of multiple holes as flesh starts moving to slowly repair itself; which clearly the men have noticed and are scared shitless by, as both he and Vlad can feel, see, and smell the fear coming off the truck.

Vlad huffs, stands himself upright and goes about brushing off and inspecting his suit. Huffing again and turning to the van, crossing his arms, “I do believe you owe me a new suit, young man”. Someone inside the vehicle chokes. Danny thinks that’s a pretty reasonable reaction here. But there’s literally zero fucking point of them acting human here, because fuck they were both riddled with bullet holes and their blood was very literally splattered around the ground. Might as well scare these assholes a little.

Hence why Danny sticks a finger in one of the larger holes due to multiple bullets going through the same general area and giggles, “huh, that tickles”, and grins meanly at the driver who looks absolutely disturbed and too far into shock to try driving away yet. Though thinking of it, Vlad might actually try to kill them; tit for tat was absolutely Vlad’s primary go-to in any situation. Hence their arguably insanely prank wars. So Danny stands up and promptly launches himself inside the vehicle, knocking over the man with the bloody machine gun -seriously, how is that not overkill- and landing with his feet on the guys chest. Danny’s pretty sure the guy wet himself. Which, ew, but understandable.

“Okay I’m feeling nice because this is absurdly hilarious and would qualify as some ridiculous ass overkill for normal folks. Kinda pointless against immortals though, dontcha think?”, turning his head to look at Vlad -who’s quirking a single well-groomed eyebrow while his eye goes about repairing itself- through the door, “what do ya think?”.

Vlad walks over calmly and humming, “well I’ll give them points for accuracy, they hardly damaged the surroundings at all. Which I find I can appreciated since that avoids me having to make yet another dip into the damages funds. And I’ll be generous and give another point for dramatics; board daylight, middle of the city, biggest high-powered rapid-fire weapon anyone’s ever aimed at me, the sudden loud noise. Why I’m almost impressed. But I do find the overall end result to be rather lacking”. Vlad kicks one of the front tires hard enough to puncture it while the driver starts scrambling and fumbling to attempt at driving off. The psssssh sound the tire makes actively increases the smell of fear filling the van. Understandable, these guys had effectively just lost their getaway vehicle.

Danny chuckles, “aww, looks like someone’s not going anywhere anytime fast”, Danny grins meanly and flashes his green eyes. The guy passes out. “Ah damn, he passed out”, shrugging, “eh, hopefully he’ll think this was just some bad dream”.

Vlad hums as he climbs in, ecto-beaming another guy in the head to knock him out. Huh, guess Vlad’s really truly genuinely chilled out some in the evil villain department. “Yes that would be preferred, Daniel. I take it Phantom will be delivering these men to the jailhouse after having shielded the mayor and a young boy at the last second”.

Danny snorts as he gets off the gunman and kicks the driver in the head; the guys head bouncing off the steering wheel and obviously knocking him the Hell out. “Obviously. And hey, why not say Phantom healed any injuries to boot. Not like anyone’s sure about the power set of that spooky bastard”, and smirks. Talking about himself like a different person was arguably not necessary right now, no one was around after all, but hey it was kinda funny.

Vlad nods, riffles through the mens’ pockets and pockets all their cash. Which Danny rolls his eyes at, “old bank robber habits die hard?”. Vlad rolls his eyes, “hardly. This is simply to repay me for the damages. This was a nice suit I’ll have you know”. Which Danny rolls his eyes right back at him over while Vlad hops out of the vehicle, looks around, readjusts the remaining scraps of his suit, and saunters off; grabbing a surprisingly intact handkerchief from a definitely not intact pocket and starts dabbing blood off his face, hair, and hands. Danny’s not going to question why the man doesn’t just phase it off or reabsorb it into his body again.

Danny closes the vehicle doors purely to attempt at not transforming directly in open view in the middle of the street. Grabbing up the three guys before pausing and deciding eh why not and telekinetically floating the freaking machine gun onto his back and making that invisible. Flying off through the vehicle's roof.

Danny unceremoniously drops the men on the jailhouse floor, “gotcha a present. They tried to unload, like, a bazillion bullets into the dear ol’ mayor”.

Officer Jay sighs, “we were getting some calls about a shooting? But with regular guns”, motioning a few other cops to drag the guys away.

Danny chuckles and nods, “try machine gun”, the cop almost chokes while Danny continues, “not that that is particularly effective on intangibility”.

The cop looks him over, obviously noticing the healing bullet wounds here and there. Healing however many bullet holes takes time you know! “Obviously you weren’t quite fast enough”.

Danny shrugs, “eh, blowing a bunch of holes in a ghost doesn’t really do much other than make a mess. Mayors cool though”.

“That’s... good”, Jay shakes his head, “well, we’ll take care of these guys and I doubt they legally had a machine gun. You didn’t just leave that out in the street did you?”. Danny waves the guy off nonchalantly, “Fenton was there too, took it as his plundered booty”, he makes a point to make that last bit sound pirate-like. The cop sighs and rubs his temples, “so there’s a seventeen-year-old running around with a machine gun”.

“Yup”, absolutely popping the ‘p’.

Danny easily hears the guy mutter, “somedays I would really like to quit”, before looking back to him, “well that family has every weapon license known to man, so I’m not even going to bother. Have a good day and a fulfilling afterlife”. Danny salutes with a cheeky grin before phasing up through the roof.

Sam and Tucker don’t so much as blink from Danny suddenly appearing from around a corner and barging in-between the two of them, “hey guys, some guys left me a little present”

Both give a mildly interested and slightly worried, “oh?”. Which is fair, Danny has described getting a taser stuck in his leg as ‘a present’ before.

He grins a bit psychotically, makes the gun visible, and whips it around to be holding it in his hands, “a machine gun!”.

Sam slows her pace slightly, just enough to no longer have a freaking mini-gun pointed at her stomach, “that’s nice Danny”. While Tucker looks much more excited, “Holy frick that’s awesome. Where’d that come from though?”.

Sam sighs, “or more specifically how and why. Ghosts don’t exactly use human weapons and ‘some guys’ is vague as shit”.

Danny chuckles, because that who ordeal was still stupid funny. “Curtsy of one poorly informed assignation attempt in dear ol’ uncie Vlad”.

Tucker blinks, “wait, someone actually tried to assassinate him”, then pauses, “wait no, of course someone tried to assassinate Vlad. He’s Vlad”. Making all three chuckle while Danny fiddles with the massive ass barrel.

All three grin viciously when they spot Dash and co. across the street. Danny deciding to yell, “hey Dash!”, and easily tilting the machine gun up due to, y’ know, super strength, and fires off a bunch of bullets into the air; extending his intangibility to the bullets of course so that they don’t actually hit anything and forming some ectoplasm ‘round his friends' ears so he doesn’t, like, blow out their eardrums or some shit.

Dash stares at him a little bug-eyed before scowling, sticking his arms out to the side, and shouting back, “I haven’t bullied you in a year! Why you still giving me vague ass death threats!”.

Danny cackles, aims the gun to shoot the sign over the assholes head, and riddles it with bullets, “it’s payback bitch!”. Sure Danny would never have done that if he wasn’t absolutely certain his aim was so fucking flawless that there was zero chance of him hitting anything other than what exactly he wanted to. And sure, maybe he swirled some invisible ectoplasm around the bullet trajectory too but no one needs to know that. Dash predictably staggers back, flips him off, and books it down the road.

Danny lowers the gun with a chuckle, “that was fun. So worth getting shot a few times”. Sam blinks at him and looks more than a little not impressed, “you actually got shot, Danny”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “what, in any world, would make you think I didn’t get shot”. Sam just huffs, obviously having no argument for that. Because yeah, Danny always got shot or stabbed or electrocuted or set on fire or a lot of other things.

Tucker shakes his head, “and yet you look totally fine”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “Tuck, what can a regular ol’ bullet do to me”. That gets both his friends to blink and give him disbelieving, “wait, they weren’t even ecto-bullets”. Tucker shaking his head with a laugh at Danny’s nod, “wow, whoever really did, like, zero research”.

“I know right. We scared them real good though”.

Tucker laughs a bit more, “never before have I actually wished to be at a shooting”, shrugging, “first for everything”.

“Amen to that”, Danny emphasises that statement by smacking the gun.

End.

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